About “The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt.”

“The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt.” is the fourth track on I Love You, Honeybear. It plays as an odious ode to a lover — presumably not his “honeybear” — and recounts the numerous peccant behaviors she blithely exhibited during their undoubtedly brief time together.

The third-person perspective of the title is reminiscent of the way people magnify social encounters with anyone who has experienced any degree of fame, and sleeping with a celebrity — no matter how obscure — often warrants a frequently-repeated tale; by writing a song about it, you’d think that Tillman is encouraging such behaviour.

But, in true Father John Misty fashion, he’s not about to let this girl get off easy; he does nothing else but insult her, so if she does keep using this story as social capital, she runs the risk of having her flaws exposed. She’s trapped into either dropping the name-dropping or acknowledging her vapidity/general social incompetence. FJM punk’d her like Ashton never could.